Tag Archives: 60 Minutes

Steve Shoemaker rushed into mind today. I searched for what Steve had to say on Palm Sunday here on Views from the Edge. Little could Steve have known in 2012 that Palm Sunday in 2018 would be topped off by a “60 Minutes” interview with a porn star refuting claims of “fake news” coming from the man in the Oval Office.

The Donkey: a Kid’s Verse

The coats the folks are throwing down

sure make it hard for me to walk

especially carrying this clown

whose feet are almost to the ground.

“Hosannah King!” is all the talk,

but this guy seems to be as poor

as I am–no one could mistake

him for a Royal–he’s just a fake!

They wave palm branches, and they roar,

but my long ears can hear the real

parade across the city square:

the General, the Priests, the score

of war horses–the whole grand deal.

This pitiful parade will fail

to save a soul, and soon the yell

will change from “Hail!” to…”Kill!”

[Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 28, 2012]

Release of Barabbas – artwork by Wenceslas Coehergher

The donkey that carried “the clown” stands in deliberate contrast to Caesar’s war horses. All these years later, Jesus of the donkey and the donkey continue to speak truth to power. Today I lay my coat on the road for the humble king of kings.

Rex Tillerson is out at the State Department. Mike Pompeo is in. So is Stormy Daniels, waiting to tell her story on 60 Minutes. The White House’s email this morning was deafeningly silent about Tillerson’s firing, directing the public’s attention to the president’s visit to the border wall with Mexico today.

As a long time proponent of a foreign policy of respect for the sovereignty of other nations, the pursuit of peaceful solutions to international disputes, and global action on climate change, and a critic of crony capitalism, it is leaves me more than a little disturbed to find myself in the same camp with a former Exxon CEO, the FBI, the CIA, and Generals and Admirals of the U.S. military establishment who refuse to settle down in the White House cuckoo’s nest.

Rex Tillerson is out the day after publicly paying heed to America’s closest ally’s claim that the Russians are responsible for the poisonings in Britain. That the president and Tillerson disagreed on strategic matters is no secret. Nor is the allegation that the Secretary of State called his boss “a ___ moron,” an allegation Tillerson deflected but never denied. Why the president waited so long to fire him has been a head-scratcher explained perhaps by the respect Tillerson commands from Wall Street, multinational corporate leaders, global capitalist free trade proponents, and, yes, even moderate climate change action advocates. All have looked to the former Exxon CEO as one Trump cabinet member who a least understands complexity and respects measured responses and careful planning required before things like a meeting with Kim Jung-un.

The president often tweets after a stormy night. Perhaps the timing of the Tillerson firing less than a week before Stormy Daniels’ scheduled 60 Minutesinterview is an ill-considered attempt to circle the wagons around the cuckoo’s nest before Stormy and the Mueller investigation findings shut off the television in the White House bedroom.

The proprietor of a small shop in a small medieval town in France engages the American visitor in friendly conversation. He asks what’s happening in the U.S. He wants to know whether Donald Trump really could be elected president.

He explains that he has a brother who’s a narcissist. “Every time I see that finger pointing on TV, I see my brother,” he says with a cringe. I share his cringe.

I later ask a psychotherapist about the hand – the strangely pointed finger with the circle made by the thumb and ring finger. Notice, he said, that the circle is closed. There’s no room for disagreement. The finger sends the same message.

Lesley Stahl’s “60 Minutes” interview in Mr. Trump’s apartment in Trump Tower last night was worth its weight in gold. One couldn’t help noticing that the chairs on which Lesley, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Pence sat were gold-plated.

Gordon C. Stewart

I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our dog Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would without him.